When I met Melissa nearly 4 years ago in New York City, she was just starting her business after leaving her engineering career. We've kept in touch over the years as our businesses have morphed and changed. Never did I realize she would tell me she's now a voiceover artist.

I'm fascinated with her journey through career, marriage, and motherhood. I'm sure you will be, too.

Transcript:

(00:00)
Okay, we're recording. Hey Melissa, how are you? I'm doing well, Sally. How are you? Oh, awesome. Now do you go by Melissa del Toro Schaffner or do you do Melissa del Toro or what? What's the, what's the deal these days? Okay, so, well, I started my business when I was dating my husband. So, or actually, let's see, we were just newly married, so you know, kind of like in that, in that part, like do I want to join my business to my relationship and use my married name or I want to just be my own brand. Like I have been for 30 some odd years, so I just chose to leave the relation, my relationship name out of my brand. And so I'm just Melissa del Toro International. And so Melissa del Toro was fine, but on Facebook I'm Melissa del Toro Schaffner it kind of gives me another level of privacy. 

(00:50)
So I kind of like [inaudible] point. You had two Facebook profiles. I learned actually that that's like not a thing. I was taught in a program, I was in that that was the thing to do. So I did that to try and keep business and personal separate because I wanted my friends to have my personal and then I wanted to build my business on a separate one. And then I was told as Facebook was evolving, cause this was about four or five years ago as Facebook was evolving and the security measures and everything, I was told by some experts and I know you're an expert on it, that that was not a thing that you should do. So I have been phasing out trying to pull all my contacts away from that into my personal and then changing the relationship of the people who who I friend. 

(01:37)
Right. Cause you have different options now and I just don't really like to mix. I know a lot of people mix personal and business, but these days with the environment of, you know, with women, with children, with politics, it's just really, um, it's just really not smart to air some, some of your dirty laundry with your personal life into your business. Cause it just makes it a little messy and can turn off some of your clients. That's true. That's true. I even got in trouble for a blog post I wrote where I used a, a bad word and I, and I was going to evaluate it to exhibit at this event here in Nashville and I was asked to tone it down and maybe abbreviate it. And so, but uh, it was kinda funny cause I was like, oh, okay. And at first I was like, no. 

(02:33)
And I was like, no, it's okay. I live in the south, I'm in the Bible belt. I kind of need to in a year some of the things going on and I'm trying my best to be more local because I like nobody in town knows who I am yet. I've got a presence all over the world, but locally I, my presence is like this, you know? Right, right. Well, let me introduce myself to your listeners. So to be here today, and they're probably like, is the, who is this chick lady? Take my time, another, another five minutes of my time to listen to this. So I'm, my name is Melissa del Torres Schaffner. I do go by Melissa del Toro for my business and I'm a voiceover artist. So I help, um, clients bring life and create a warm relationship with their audience. I have a friendly, sort of conversational warm maternal tone. So I like to, uh, book scripts that, that can use that to their advantage to create a relationship with their customers. So that's what I do. 

(03:33)
No Way. I didn't even know. 

(03:35)
Yes. And we had been talking because I have pivoted so, so why should you even listen for another second? Well, my story is super interesting and I think that all your listeners would probably really be able to identify with pieces because I started out, you know, young Puerto Rican girl in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a Jewish neighborhood. That's where my roots are. So I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to Penn state for electrical engineering. I graduate with my electrical engineering degree. I got my MBA in Seattle. So I moved across the country and lived in Seattle for 10 years, which was amazing. And then I didn't want any more rain and I was kind of in my mid thirties looking for, you know, my, my, uh, my forever love and I was emerging from some really toxic relationships and a lot of self-loathing and a lot of daddy issues and stuff like that. 

(04:30)
So I moved to Austin, Texas because I heard it was amazing. It was, I lifted it for two years and met my husband who is coincidentally from La. So I mean, he's not a cowboy, not a southern gentleman. He's not a cowboy, but he is a gentleman. And, um, we moved to New York City. So, um, a lot of people who know me know me mostly from my work in New York City because that's where I started my business four years ago. I had my daughter there. Um, I was married while I was there. Um, and it was just in a really incredible journey. So I met Sally, um, in New York City of all the places in the universe that I found myself, um, at a conference and were also both part of project positive change, which is an amazing organization that I think every, every person who wants to change the world for good should be part of that organization. So you can ask Sally, but um, yeah, so I'm an engineer and converted to an a to a voiceover artist. So it really couldn't be two difference. 

(05:35)
First met you, what made me notice you, we were in that conference of Kimra Luna's in New York City and she was doing, she had you get in the hot seat 

(05:46)
at the 

 (05:47)
realm and asked you some questions and you explained that you had just come from engineering, you had quit your job and you were trying to appeal with soft skills to the engineering people so that they would be able to, you know, get through their work. Yes. And or they could have better relationships at work. They could have, you know, better communication, whatever it was. And I'm intrigued by you because I came from, you know, an actuarial background, which is also a very scientific field, very math oriented field. And I was like, Huh, that's really interesting what she's doing. And here I am trying to do some sort of creative marketing advertising career on my own. And so I ended up talking to you. I don't know if I would just walked up to you and said, or if we met at the dinner that night or how we ended up meeting, but we ended up hitting it off. 

 (06:44)
And then it was so funny how the next time I ran into you, you were a member of project positive change, which was some, yeah. And that was totally another coincidence. And saying when I was back in New York for something else, I was like, come meet me. And we met in the park with your and your daughter, or you had not even had your daughter yet. So I watched you throughout your whole pregnancy in everything, building your business and making all these changes. And then I also remember, which was very profound to me, was that coloring book that you were working on. Do you still have that? Is that okay? 

 (07:23)
I don't think I do. So that coloring book was the brainchild of mine and my mother's, it's a multicultural coloring book. It's called careers for little sisters. And it was a brainchild of my mother's in mind because as I was growing this little person, I didn't know if it was a girl or a boy at the time as I was growing this little person and and in my belly, I'm thinking, you know, when she comes out, what is she, you know, what kinds of materials or what kinds of materials are out there to help her inspire her to show her what she can do in the world. Because, you know, from a Puerto Rican background, uh, you know, a lot of the books you look at, there's not a lot of like little Latin girls and stuff like that since then, like four or five years ago, there are a lot of materials. 

 (08:10)
But when I created the coloring book, I actually had to teach myself how to draw on the tablet. I had a belly this big and I was just trying to hurry up and finish it and publish it before she was born. That was like, we got to get this thing done because once she's here, that's it. No time, no time. So I took it around to the New York City school system and I used it as a tool to talk to children, specifically second graders because second grade, age 10 is a magical time because kids still know who they are. They haven't been sort of poisoned by society to tell them you're amazing. So I was going to second graders and you know, telling them to dream big. What is it you want to do? You know yourself the best that you'll ever know, you know, and your whole life. People go to therapy to remember what you know right now. 

 (09:04)
Oh, just be messed up by this whole what? Limiting beliefs and things that happened to you as a child. Then if you had, if this hadn't happened, maybe you wouldn't think this way and you're not in your 35 years old trying to figure out why you think this way and you're rolling back to all these memories of that time. 

 (09:22)
So it's very, it's powerful. And, and what I loved is that the book focuses on a lot of different, uh, I wanted the book to have, um, characters in it that looked like real people. So a lot of the inspiration I got from how I drew, I drew the book and I wrote it. So I did everything in it and I published it on what used to be create space. It's now kindle direct is people on the subway. Like as I was going back and forth to doctor's appointments in and out of Manhattan, I was like sort of stalking people and like memorizing their hair and memorizing their body and memorizing their shoes. 

 (09:56)
Yeah. Cause you wouldn't dare take a picture. They might get up and beat you up. 

 (10:01)
Actually, I've almost beat up people for taking my picture, but there you go. So yeah, so it did really well. I was promoting it in the schools. I was promoting it on Instagram. It's still out there, but I've taken the focus off of it. Um, it was generating some pretty decent revenue for a minute. Um, really, really exciting. I'm creating a product is a really great way to have an additional revenue income stream in your life. So people who are listening think about other products you can create from the things you know. And I'm sure Sally, 

 (10:31)
well I would love if you do still have a link for that, I would love to attach it to um, I ads and things when I do my ads to get people to watch this live or to listen to the podcast or however we form. Yes. I haven't even decided how I'm going to move. I am wanting to start a podcast and I've got and sometimes have interviews set up with some really interesting people who happened to have this sort of, you know, finance or engineering or sort of background and are local science background, but they're moving into these creative spaces or they're using something creative to really bring forth the learning from the logical side of things that they're doing. Um, it's been really fun. I tend to attract those people in my life, how it just seems to be this magic thing that happens. And so that's sort of the direction I'm going. So I'd love to be able to pull that back out of you if you're okay with it. 

 (11:35)
I would love that. You know, I think I'm thinking of something interesting like if I was with you and, and all, you know, the [inaudible] attend the 100,000 people that are going to be listening to this episode. If I was with you in a coffee shop and I'm thinking that probably one of the things you would be wondering is like how, how did you go from doing engineering to like voice acting? Like what, who does that? Who makes that jump? So, so if I have your permission, I'll tell you a little bit about my journey. Like in 500 words or less. 

 (12:09)
Yes. Cause the next piece where we met up again was through project management. And I did realize you were doing that but just, just a conversation sort of turned into it. And then you helped me at the time. Of course I wasn't completely ready for it, which now, but I wasn't ready for it then. But it's, it's interesting. So yes, please go through that journey of how you've changed and grown and what will, what'd you call it? The extemporaneous 

 (12:38)
I was in toastmasters and anybody who's listening that did toastmasters knows about extemporaneous speaking. It's basically when they just put you there and say and go [inaudible] if you've been booked for a meeting, like hey you have a meeting to lead in five minutes, you know, and you're just like, oh great. What are, what am I supposed to be talking about? You know, that's how I teach. 

 (13:01)
Well, I come up with the topic cause I'm cause people are talking about it in my group and I'm like [inaudible] 

 (13:06)
Ah, why don't we teach that in the next session? 

 (13:10)
Like literally an hour before 

 (13:11)
four, I go, what am I? And then in there and just talk about it. Just, it works out every time. That's awesome. I really believe, like we had talked about before, the whatever you need to hear, you're gonna hear it today because you're tuned in. So whatever it is that made you keep listening to this point, you're going to find out the answer. You know, you're going to hear your answer and you're going to be a better person for it. So I love sharing, sharing my experiences and my voice to try and help people to refine their journey. So, so we had talked about before they went to Penn state for electrical engineering and that's where the story starts. Um, I have always been sort of daddy's girl and my father was an electrical engineer by training, but he never fulfilled that, uh, training. He actually went to work for the IRS and he was very sad most of his life. 

 (14:04)
He didn't like, he didn't like what he had to do for his job. So, you know, that's a whole nother discussion about what that did to my psyche about how I feel about work. But, um, I chose, I chose, I had two choices. My mother was a teacher, my father was an electrical engineer. I chose not to go broke like most artists do. And I said, I'm not going to do something, you know, creative and teaching cause I wanna make money, you know, I want to make a lot of money so I'm going to be an engineer. So I went to school for Engineering, I got my MBA, I kept piling the degrees on top of it and got my project management master's certificate while I was single. I thought, I'm just going to get all the education I, I want, because once I have a family, I'm never learning another thing again. 

 (14:53)
That happened, how that happened. So, and it's so not, not true. And then, so I'm in my thirties. I, you know, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. I was in the construction industry for 20, almost 20 years as a electric Engineer and project manager. So that's what I did from my bread and butter. It's a really good paying career, but you travel a lot and you're pretty much married to a career like that. So there really wasn't a whole lot of room for me to have love in my life and have children. It's just, you know, you're really dedicated to your work at that point, or at least that was my mindset. So, um, so I got all those degrees and everything. I'm in my mid thirties and I'm just emerging out of a toxic relationship with a person that was very, very unkind, a very unkind person. 

 (15:44)
And I realized that, you know, like life is too short. You Ha you have to, you have to travel, you have to do all of wonderful things. So I quit my job in Seattle. I traveled all over Europe for four months by myself and I got my head back in the game, moved in with my parents. Let's just say at the tender age of 35 and then from my parent's home, sort of getting my head around it. I moved to Austin, Texas. I worked in the renewable energy field. Um, uh, wind and solar farms. I had a project I did in Hawaii and that's, I met my husband in that job and my husband works in film and Television, so, oh the, you know, all of the things rotating around each other. And my husband gets called to New York City, so I essentially book him a ticket on a plane and I'm like, you're going to New York City. And I just dating him at this point, you know, who am I like? But I was like, I love him. I want to be with him and I don't want to be dating this dude in my company. Like I want to be with him, so to go to New York City. 

 (16:51)
So, so he went and it was wonderful and he really found a home in the film scene there. So I moved up with him and we were there for five years. And like I said, we had our, we broke up while we were there. We got together while we were there, we got married. Um, I started my business about a month before I found I was pregnant. So what happened was I had a Jerry McGuire moment at the company that I was working at at Manhattan. The lead engineer was very unkind. He said a lot of really unkind things to me and I basically left the building crying because I have to visit my dad and texts or Arizona who was very, very sick. He had Parkinson's and this guy basically accused me that I always dropped the ball, that I never do my work, all this kind of terrible things that were not true. 

 (17:44)
And I think it was because he was very unhappy. But when I came back to New York City, after my father who was very ill, I thought, I can't work here anymore. In fact, I can't even do this anymore. Like it's stressing me out so bad. And we were having trouble getting pregnant. I set up, I'm done with this and I quit. And within like weeks I was able to get pregnant because the stress, my body just was gone. So that was wonderful. I had a great pregnancy and all that kind of thing, but I was also beginning to build my business. And what I knew was engineering, I knew project management and that's where you had said where you had met me, that I was building the soft skills for engineers. I realized that young engineers think they know everything. So trying to sell something to people who know everything is very challenging. So yeah. So um, I pivoted a little bit, which a lot of people do in their business a lot. I mean, you just have to be in motion. That's one of the things I learned from Kimra is you just have to be in motion and then you learn who you're connecting with, what you like to do, what you're good at. People will tell you what you're good at. You know, they'll tell you. Yeah, 

 (19:00)
it's mind, they'll respond to you. And however it is, whenever I talked about my mother when she was dying, people responded unbelievably to the emotion that I was able to convey in my writing. 

 (19:14)
Yeah. 

 (19:15)
And so that definitely helped me change a lot of the things that I've been doing. So I know 

 (19:20)
well that that's true. Yeah. 

 (19:23)
You pivoting at that point, then you were pregnant and then you went into the book, the coloring book, 

 (19:32)
and then what else? And then so I went into the coloring book because it was sort of like, I can't do the engineering thing, but I really want to get this coloring book out there. And so I started going around to schools. Some schools actually paid me to do speaking gigs with to their students, which was really cool. Um, and I, um, went around to the schools talking about my coloring book, and then I started to discover the project management skill set that was useful. I was, I was getting called upon to help the owners get organized. So for the next maybe two years, I did project management gigs where I would book clients. I would give them solely my time. I would go into their business, I would identify what was sort of like going [inaudible] Ri, what was good and we'd make plans and then I'd help people stick to them without accountability. 

 (20:20)
Every business owner needs, it's working out really, really great for a really long time. And my daughter was on my lap nursing, you know, breastfeeding while I was working and I was on web webinars and it was perfect until my daughter started talking and that's everything. Um, and I, I couldn't even hear myself on the phone anymore because my, every time I would get on the phone with a client, my daughter would want to talk. Um, which was wonderful for me cause I knew I had a smart baby, but not good for clients. So, um, the client that I had told you the story, the client that I had at the time felt that, um, the amount that she was paying me as a freelancer and, uh, the amount of work she needed me to do and my schedule, they all just didn't match. I just couldn't sit behind the computer eight hours a day for her client collateral to come in reviewing it against what they sent the last time to make sure it was all correct. 

 (21:23)
I couldn't do this, couldn't concentrate on that. No Butler running around who I knew I needed a new business model but I didn't know what and I knew that I wanted to really go in a direction of being more creative, but I didn't know how. So after I dropped the project management, I did some vision board workshops for awhile because they allowed me to have an event and to create some income in like a one day event and then have the rest of the time very flexible for me to plan. Were you still in New York at this time or had you moved to Arizona? I had. I'm off to Arizona during my assignment with that project management client and he experienced the blip of me moving here and she decided that she didn't want that dynamic in her business. Right. So that's, so then that's when I abandoned the project management work and I went into some vision board work, which was great, but I found that, um, people in bigger cities tend to dream bigger than people in smaller cities. 

 (22:31)
And that's just a fact. Uh, people who are in smaller city like to be with their family, they may be the biggest dream is to get a house or an RV and travel a little bit, you know, in the country. But as far as paying for vision board workshops, it wasn't lucrative enough to pay my monthly bills. So I'm going, Huh, Geez, now, now what do you do now? What do I do? Here's this electrical engineer, MBA with my project management masters and I can't even make, I can't make two pennies to rub together. Yeah. I can't even, I can't get out. And part of that was because that was around the time my father was dying. Oh, sorry. Because that was around the time with my dad was dying. Um, and he died nine months after we moved here. So it was perfect. We were supposed to be here. 

 (23:25)
I was supposed to be available. I didn't have any work so I could just go to my dad. I could help my mom. It was perfect. Perfect, perfect. I mean, of course my credit cards and stuff didn't think it was perfect. And at the time when you're living it, you don't really have the perspective. No, no. I mean know what's happening. When I was living in, I just thought there's something wrong with me because I am so highly accomplished and I was making, you know, so much money in New York City and, and then to go into a situation where I can't even sell, I can't even sell anything. And I realized I was just really grieving and that, you know, that was probably about two years ago now, about two years ago now. So vision boards not working out so well. So I decided at that point, which is what you wanted me to tell your listeners, this is the big juicy part that you can squeeze from the story is I figured if I'm not going to make money doing what I hate, I might as well not do, make money. 

 (24:35)
Doing what I love. Exactly. So, so I looked at my vision board, which is literally right here. And if you're listening to a podcast, you can't see that I've pulled out this giant board of dreams. But if you're watching the film, the video, you can, oh, I realize that on my vision board, I have this, well besides this naked, but there's a naked bud on there, but they're a a microphone microphone symbolizing my voiceover dreams. And I've had that on there for like 20 years. I was talking about it, you know, 20 years ago. And so I said, it's time. I'm 45. I'm the mother of a three year old. I have a lot left in me. Let's do this thing. So as of January this year, I dedicated myself to voiceover. And for anybody listening that doesn't know what that is, basically, if you hear a voice and you don't see a body, it's coming out of, that's voiceover voiceover, right? 

 (25:37)
So you hear it everywhere. The New York City subway, you hear it, you hear it in elevators, you hear it. Um, when you're watching a video and there's somebody talking, but you don't see that person [inaudible] those are full on TV commercials. You'll see all kinds of things, everything, radio, everything that you hear, a voice, toys, video games. I mean the field is so huge. Even Alexa is a voiceover [inaudible] you know, so I decided this has been my passion forever, is to connect with people using my voice, you know? So as of January, I began integrating on linkedin and Facebook with the, with the acting community, the voiceover actor community absorbs me like the biggest sponge and just, and I just knew I was home. I was like, wow, why didn't I just, you know, find people? What did you, what do you do? Did you just change your title and just start going for it? 

 (26:33)
Or did I do, are you signed up on the Amazon voice over thing that they have for reading books or, I mean, what did you do? So January 1st I said, okay, I'm going to get into voiceovers. Now, the background is, is that I had already taken classes many moons ago at the University of Washington and in New York City with Roger Becker, I had taken voiceover classes. So I knew that I liked it. If anybody's listening that they think that's intriguing, take a few classes because you either love it or you hate it because it is acting after all it's performing and it's remoting. And I had taken classes and I knew I left it, I already had all the equipment and I went on to audible ACX cause I had produced the coloring book. So I thought, okay well they also produce audio books. So I auditioned or Nadia Book and I got one and it's actually now for sale. 

 (27:31)
I'm going to be promoting it pretty soon. Yay My baby. Yeah. So I produced an audio book on ACX, which is one way you can use your voice as long form narration, which is a little bit different than commercials and sort of short flips and bursts. Um, so I did that and basically what I've been doing is just business owners who need a tutorial video or you know, e-learning tutorial videos. They need a voice or thing explainer videos or like if you want a promotional video for your business, talking about what to do, you know, and things like that. Um, I can, you know, I work with video producers or I just produced the audio on my own. Again, audio books. I do dive into, you know, auditioning for commercials and things like that, but I feel like I have some more classes to take before I'm really ready to perform on demand. Okay. So, so that's kind of where I'm at. Huh? What about Spanish? Okay. So anytime you switch any part of voiceover, whether you're going from commercials to audio books or if you're going from one language to another, you need to actually take courses to learn how to do that. Because for instance, Spanish in Latin America is very different than Spanish voiceover here in the United States. They have a different way that they communicate. Uh, like here, if you've ever heard, you know, the commercials on Mexican radio is like Duh, Duh, Duh, you know, oh yeah. 

 (29:19)
You know, you kind of have that feeling. Whereas in some other countries you have the good at it. You don't like that kind of feeling. It's a different bird call, like a song almost. So whenever you're auditioning for these different spots, you have to know who's the audience. You know, what they're intending to communicate, how to perform an intellect, your voice so that it's appropriate and it engages the audience. You know, you can hear when somebody is reading something to you and then you can hear when they're actually saying it to you. Like we're talking right now. 

 (29:57)
Yeah. Yeah. I had to do a voiceover in Spanish for a corporate website. Wow. For healthcare, they call it. This friend of mine was working for the company doing their website and she said, Sally knows how to speak Spanish. And they already had the words they had. It already translated. I just had to read. It took me a little while to get back into the rhythm of it. But honestly, I don't know is my inflection was really right when it came to communication within the Spanish language. But it was such a corporate IEC kind of a thing that it really didn't matter that I was reading the best that I could with it. It didn't pay that much either. And I think I never even got my final payment on it. But regardless, it was, it was very interesting. And so for you to bring that up about how to speak to people and where they are and to really know your audience, that's really interesting to me. I never even thought of it that way. 

 (31:02)
It's funny because when I was in college, um, I was working for a company called amp incorporated, which it got bought out by Tyco electronics. And there was this big thing with the, with the dude with a $200 shower curtain. It was like this big scandal back in the 90s. And, um, somebody was, had a connection Mexico and they needed, um, signs from machine. You know, when you push the buttons on machines in the factory, like stuff, they just needed some button translations. So I said Spanish, I can totally do buttons, translations. So I've put this spreadsheet together at my tender age of like 19 years old and I was really open and excited and so thrilled to share my Spanish. And then I found out that they couldn't use what I made and that everybody in the factory was laughing at my translations when they got them because I was using literal translations words instead of like the word that they would use. So they were howling and laughing so hard and I so humiliated. It was like almost as if your toddler just meant, they were just like, what is this translation? So, 

 (32:26)
oh, the colloquialisms and all of the normal things that they say on a daily basis were out the window. This was all about your opinions. Did they stop? 

 (32:36)
They don't say [inaudible] or [inaudible] or whatever you say if they say stuff. Yeah. So I'm putting all these like, you know, formal words on it because I didn't actually know what they were using it for. And I had never been to a factory in Mexico, so I didn't know, you know, and these tiny things, what you don't know that you don't know is actually what bites you. That's what you pay for when you have training and experience. When you have trained people, that's what you're paying for. So you don't get bitten in that way because that of time and money to get it in that way. 

 (33:13)
Yeah. Well, and it goes to show, here's a corporation thinking they need to go hire someone who speaks Spanish when really they probably could have had a group meeting with some of their employees and this discussion around what was needed and could have done it much better. And for me, 

 (33:31)
Dang. Yeah. Extra. So I mean, so there you go. So there you go. But so that's kind of the, the, the connection of the engineering to the voice voice acting. And really, I mean I've been doing it all my life the best, the thing that I knew how to do best when I was younger as play barbies. I mean I played barbies for like 15 years. It was ridiculous and my sisters would literally sit behind me while I was playing barbies and watch me like like watching TV or a movie. Like it was that dramatic, you know how I performed with my barbies. That's pretty funny. 

 (34:08)
Well, so now what are your main, do you have like a website or are you trying to figure out some sort of program or are you just looking for opportunities in every corner? 

 (34:20)
Well, you know, I took a lot of courses when I was in New York City this past month. I was there for a whole month and I'm basically one of the best pieces of advice that I got while I was there from somebody who's actually making money is don't throw out. Every skill set that I have is going to be important to somebody. So don't, just because I've done project management and I want not promoting it anymore, it doesn't mean that if I get in the door with somebody that, that I shouldn't, you know, um, yeah, right 

 (34:54)
on your list of skills, use it in, well, you could probably easily use it on helping even help people with voice, finding voiceover things and kinds of things you could do with your project management skills and this industry. 

 (35:11)
Just setting up your business, just setting up your Google drive with, with the folders that you need to put your auditions in to put to put your, we generate very big files in this industry. Anybody who does video and audio generates very big files and you can't keep it locally on your hard drive. So just, you know, having an organization structure for that. Um, just doing technical things, creative people who perform a test, usually very technical technophobic so I'm not, you had it, 

 (35:41)
please stay on track with all your voice over, you know, all of your, whatever. I don't know what, what'd you call it? But you could easily teach something like that in a course to your peers and also be doing the voiceover work yourself and telling them what you're doing and how you're managing all of that. And getting a Google account or unlimited data is only like 10 bucks a month. 

(36:05)
Yeah, and I mean, actors, let's face it. I mean, I'm proud I was probably making as much as an actor when I was in, I wasn't Jerry. I mean actors just, they, they do a lot of work for not a lot of money until they get, you know, uh, more seasoned in their own marketing. So there's on-camera types of stuff that you can do. There's national commercials that pay residuals. There's audio books which are not very high paying, but as they stay out there and as the book gains popularity, it's kind of like exponential, you know, there's so many things that, that we can do, but we have to be our own business owner. We have, we can't rely on other people to get us work. I have a website, Melissa del toro.com, and it has samples of my voice and scription of my equipment that I have in my home studio. 

(36:52)
I have a professional home studio that I built here, um, that I record out of. So I'm in Arizona and I record out of my home studio. Nice. Yeah. So, so I mean, you know, there's, there's always a chance to reinvent yourself and there's always a chance to go for what you want. You're never too old, you've never done too much or too little, just whatever it is you want to do. Start today, get clear on what you want to accomplish because that's how I've done everything. I wasn't smart enough for electrical engineering. I just decided that's what I was going to do. And I did it. I was terrible at math as a child. I was terrible at math as a child, like the worst. And then here's me doing the calculations for 42 story buildings in Manhattan, in Manhattan. You know, like I, the way that I figured it is math is a language just like Spanish or French or Russian, which I took five years of. You just figure, you figure it out and you just do it. Like that's how you get past your fear in anything. That's how I got past my fear of having a child, of getting married, moving across the country. You just do it, you know? I love that. 

 (38:01)
Well, I need to wrap this up because we're running out of time, but you did mention that Melissa del toro.com is where you could go if somebody and to see what you've got on your website there. 

 (38:15)
One, one l two M E L I s s a d e l t o r o.com. Okay. And I to put them in the notes. Pardon me? Just like many eco. I think he's related to me by the way. Oh, that would be great. I'm like a like a cousin, like like a cousin or something like that. Oh, we need to find a way to get a message out to him to leverage that. Hey, help. Help out a family members. Yeah, exactly. So I love that you've done this in your journey and I have a feeling that we have to talk again because I really want to dig into your traveling that you did for several months after. How many, how long did you travel? 

 (39:03)
So after I left Seattle I went, I went to London for a month and live with my sister. She's married to a British gentleman and then I traveled to Scotland to Spain to tenor reef, which is in the Canary Islands. Um, what else did I go? Scotland. Next time we talk, let's dig into that trip cause I want to know that I've got a lot of travels myself and I want to be able to compare notes and see what you, what you've done. I've got a lot of great tips as far as like how to do it on the, on the cheap too and how to get to, it's when you get older though, you don't want to do it as much on the cheap. I mean, you want it to be cheaper, but you get to the point to where you're not necessarily apt to do the same type of travel when you climb a lot of stairs. When you do it on the cheap, let's just put it that way. A lot of stairs. We'll also share a lot of bathrooms. You pay money to take a shower. I think travel, that'd be a great episode. Everyone should travel. It makes you smarter. It makes you more compassionate. That makes you just a better world citizen. Everyone should travel. Awesome. Well thank you so much and I can't wait to talk to you next time. Talk to you later, Sally. Thank you for that. Bye everyone. Bye.

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If you'd like to find out more about Melissa, find her online here.